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The two biggest providers of electric car charging stations in the U.S. are teaming up so that drivers will more easily be able to find their combined 15,000 locations, and recharge by swiping a single card.The companies, ChargePoint Inc. and ECOtality Inc., operate networks that handle about 90% of public car charging in the country. But drivers currently need to carry separate cards to use each company's network, and use different apps to locate their charging stations.
In an effort to simplify life for customers—and encourage more people to embrace plug-in hybrid vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt—the companies are setting up a new venture dubbed Collaboratev LLC. It will allow drivers who sign up with either company to access the combined network of charging stations. The companies hope other charging services will join the effort...

oof, i'm surprised chargepoint would have anything to do with ecotality. sorry if I sound jaded but chargepoint charging stations are very reliable and well designed. my experience with ecotality/blink charging stations is the exact opposite. With the blink DCQC's around here, they barely get them in the ground before they break and need parts that for some reason take weeks, even months to come by, it's both sad and aggravating to see all that tax payer money go up in smoke! we all want them to grow and prosper, the future of EV's may depend on it but they must get their act together.

So 15,000 charging stations is 12%, or one charging for 8 gas stations. And there are barely any plugins around! Like less then 0.1% of cars are plugins.

And I disagree with the article, so far in 2013 sales of plugins in US were 3x of sales in comparison to same period of 2012. In 2012 itself there were 3 times plugins sold compared to 2011. I sure hope that this year we will see at least doubling 2012 numbers, that is more then 100,000 plugins sold in USA.

So 15,000 charging stations is 12%, or one charging for 8 gas stations. And there are barely any plugins around! Like less then 0.1% of cars are plugins.

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Not a good comparison. A charging station is more like a single gas pump rather than a whole gas station. Seems the typical gas station I see on the corner can serve 6 cars at once. And then it only takes 5 or so minutes to fuel up. So a better comparison would be to figure out how many cars a gas station can fuel in say an hour. Now how many can a charging station "fuel" in an hour.

Not a good comparison. A charging station is more like a single gas pump rather than a whole gas station. Seems the typical gas station I see on the corner can serve 6 cars at once. And then it only takes 5 or so minutes to fuel up. So a better comparison would be to figure out how many cars a gas station can fuel in say an hour. Now how many can a charging station "fuel" in an hour.

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Nope. I'm only implying that finding charging station soon would be as easy or even easier then finding gas station.

As for comparison, gas vs charging station, you need to remember that there huge number of private charging stations, ones that located in most convenient place possible, in owners garages.

So if 100,000 plugins would be sold in US this year, that would mean that 100,000 private charging stations would be created. And to compare public charging vs gas stations one would also have to take into account how often EV need those public stations. Some EV owners will never use them, while others like Volt owners with gas anxiety will spend lot more then ICE in public stations...

But my point, 10%, even more public stations are letting EV owners to find charging station nearby when they need it relatively easy. And infrastructure in it infancy, but still already impressive. This year, even according to WSJ article there would be more plugins sold then an whole history of America. And with that minuscule number of plugins on the road number of stations are very impressive.

It is not entirely a symmetrical analysis because as Zzzz states, "there [are] huge number of private charging stations" in people’s homes. Every 110 outlet is a potential charging station, even though it is a slow process, the battery gets charged. Of the 15,000 public charging stations reported, most are located on the coasts. This will probably change over time, thus allowing easier access to EV owners in the interior parts of the country.

Some of the Chargepoint stations in my area are Nissan dealers. Has anyone tried charging at one?

Also remember that virtually all of these stations are 6kw (208v 30 amps) and if you are on a trip are painfully slow. 8 hours to charge a Roadster and 12 hours to charge a Model S. So most are not very useful.

oof, i'm surprised chargepoint would have anything to do with ecotality. sorry if I sound jaded but chargepoint charging stations are very reliable and well designed. my experience with ecotality/blink charging stations is the exact opposite. With the blink DCQC's around here, they barely get them in the ground before they break and need parts that for some reason take weeks, even months to come by, it's both sad and aggravating to see all that tax payer money go up in smoke! we all want them to grow and prosper, the future of EV's may depend on it but they must get their act together.

oof, i'm surprised chargepoint would have anything to do with ecotality

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I certainly agree that Ecotality has had a lot of problems, and these have been very frustrating for owners - some even to the point where it could be slowing down EV adoption. But I don't think any of it has been due to bad intent. I think it's more that they were the low bidder on a not-completely-thought-out DOE contract doing something they'd never done before in a new industry, and they underestimated the work involved (especially the willingness of site hosts; if they had bid more on the contract, perhaps site hosts wouldn't have to contribute so much and would be much easier to find). I also suspect they wrote a poor contract themselves to get outsourced hardware and that has made things worse for them. I am sure the people responsible for those blunders are gone (as well as some other very good employees that are gone due to financial problems caused by those blunders), and the people remaining are working desperately to get back on track.

I agree Chargepoint has done a better job in many ways. Better hardware, better software, more modularity, far more flexible billing model, their station maps include ALL stations, etc. Although it's worth pointing out that the smaller DOE contract that Chargepoint won had fewer restrictions and requirements, and didn't include DCQC which is harder, so a lot of their job has been easier. But regardless, to make the interoperability thing work, Chargepoint has to work with everybody, especially the company with the second-highest number of charging stations. Everybody has known for a long time that carrying around a bunch of EVSE membership cards wasn't going to work - nobody wants to use the nearest Brand X EVSE; they want to use the EVSE nearest their destination. The companies just needed a little bump to get them to work together and make things reasonable for consumers; there is proposed legislation in CA that probably encouraged them to finally get started on this project.

I hope all the other EVSE makers jump in right away and all agree on a simple standard. It would help EV adoption greatly if everybody could just sign up for one card and charge anywhere. Kudos to Chargepoint and Ecotality for taking the first step to make this happen! I am sure while they struggle in an emerging industry, spending time and money to work with their competitors is very difficult for them.

SAN FRANCISCO and CAMPBELL, Calif. — March 7, 2013 — ChargePoint, Inc. and ECOtality, Inc. (NASDAQ:ECTY) announced today the formation of Collaboratev, LLC. Collaboratev will enable charging network interoperability, exchange session data and allow financial billing reconciliation services among electric vehicle charging networks. The new company will actively encourage other charging network providers to join as affiliates and enable EV drivers throughout the United States to seamlessly charge among all affiliated charging networks. ChargePoint and ECOtality will connect the ChargePoint and Blink networks to Collaboratev later this year.
Collaboratev’s objectives include:

“Interoperability for EV drivers is another milestone in the widespread adoption of electric vehicles,” said Pat Romano, president and CEO of ChargePoint, Inc. “Collaboratev will give EV drivers access to all stations, locations, availability and mapping features in the public domain.”
“This is a clear sign of market maturation by establishing a seamless process for EV drivers to charge across networks,” stated Ravi Brar, CEO of ECOtality. “As industry leaders, we want to ensure we are always putting the needs of our customers first. We are fostering an open ecosystem and invite others to join us in making it easy for EV drivers nationwide to get the charge they need whenever and wherever they are.”
"The creation of a vendor agnostic payment processing and authentication system for EV charging would alleviate consumer concern of being tied to one charging network and would therefore make electric vehicles more attractive to mainstream vehicle buyers," said John Gartner, research director of smart transportation at Pike Research.
For more information regarding this joint venture, please visit www.collaboratev.com.

About ChargePoint
ChargePoint is the largest online network of independently owned EV charging stations operating in 14 countries. ChargePoint provides everything an EV station owner needs to deliver turnkey electric vehicle charging services in their parking lots. For drivers, ChargePoint provides state-of-the-art features including the ability to locate, reserve and navigate to unoccupied charging stations with online tools and mobile applications. ChargePoint locations may be found online and are included on the free ChargePoint mobile applications for iPhone and Android. The ChargePoint network is open to all charging station manufacturers. About ECOtality, Inc.
ECOtality, Inc. (NASDAQ:ECTY), headquartered in San Francisco, California, is a leader in clean electric transportation and storage technologies. Through innovation, acquisitions, and strategic partnerships, ECOtality accelerates the market applicability of advanced electric technologies to replace carbon-based fuels. For more information about ECOtality, Inc., please visit www.ecotality.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain as they are based on current expectations and assumptions concerning future events or future performance of the company. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are only predictions and speak only as of the date hereof. In evaluating such statements, prospective investors should review carefully various risks and uncertainties identified in this release and matters set in the company's SEC filings. These risks and uncertainties could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements.

"Ecotality submitted the proposal to DOE for EV Project along with Coulomb and used Coulomb's EVSE for demos etc. But DOE, when awarding the contract, didn't include Coulomb. Ecotality saw an opening there to "make" more money - they completely excluded Coulomb & started on an EVSE design themselves. We all know how well that has turned out to be."

It sounds like, from reading EV Now's rendition, that had Ecotality not tried to capitalize on a loop hole in their contract, if it was in fact a loop hole, and create Blink from scratch, but instead gone with Coulomb and used Coulomb's EVSE per contract we'd have a dependable charging network, instead of something people generally appear to be avoiding for the most part. What would it be like if all those early Leaf owners were crowing instead of bitching about their public charging experiences, with some nearly spending the night out in the cold due to the shoddy quality of Blink charging stations?

I wish I could be more positive, but I think it's fair at some point to draw a conclusion and it ain't pretty.

I think it's been good for Tesla though, my experience with Blink public chargers and reading about other's in part lead me to pretty much scrap public charging all together, trade in the Leaf for a Leased Leaf, bump it down to our second car and reach deep into savings to get a Tesla S, a car I will hardly ever have to charge publicly. Unfortunately, this equates into delayed adoption by the mainstream because a lot fewer people can see their way to the expenditure that a Tesla S requires and it also means I hardly ever support public charging infrastructure. It is my personal opinion that Blink has significantly contributed to the slow roll out of moderately priced EV's, I could be wrong and I do very much hope those who are left at the helm at Ecotality can turn things around rather than screw things up for Chargepoint!

I certainly agree that Ecotality has had a lot of problems, and these have been very frustrating for owners - some even to the point where it could be slowing down EV adoption. But I don't think any of it has been due to bad intent. I think it's more that they were the low bidder on a not-completely-thought-out DOE contract doing something they'd never done before in a new industry, and they underestimated the work involved (especially the willingness of site hosts; if they had bid more on the contract, perhaps site hosts wouldn't have to contribute so much and would be much easier to find). I also suspect they wrote a poor contract themselves to get outsourced hardware and that has made things worse for them. I am sure the people responsible for those blunders are gone (as well as some other very good employees that are gone due to financial problems caused by those blunders), and the people remaining are working desperately to get back on track.

I agree Chargepoint has done a better job in many ways. Better hardware, better software, more modularity, far more flexible billing model, their station maps include ALL stations, etc. Although it's worth pointing out that the smaller DOE contract that Chargepoint won had fewer restrictions and requirements, and didn't include DCQC which is harder, so a lot of their job has been easier. But regardless, to make the interoperability thing work, Chargepoint has to work with everybody, especially the company with the second-highest number of charging stations. Everybody has known for a long time that carrying around a bunch of EVSE membership cards wasn't going to work - nobody wants to use the nearest Brand X EVSE; they want to use the EVSE nearest their destination. The companies just needed a little bump to get them to work together and make things reasonable for consumers; there is proposed legislation in CA that probably encouraged them to finally get started on this project.

I hope all the other EVSE makers jump in right away and all agree on a simple standard. It would help EV adoption greatly if everybody could just sign up for one card and charge anywhere. Kudos to Chargepoint and Ecotality for taking the first step to make this happen! I am sure while they struggle in an emerging industry, spending time and money to work with their competitors is very difficult for them.

Unfortunately, this equates into delayed adoption by the mainstream because a lot fewer people can see their way to the expenditure that a Tesla S requires and it also means I hardly ever support public charging infrastructure. It is my personal opinion that Blink has significantly contributed to the slow roll out of moderately priced EV's, I could be wrong and I do very much hope those who are left at the helm at Ecotality can turn things around rather than screw things up for Chargepoint!

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In an ironic and perverse way it may help faster adoption, since early adopters are more like to either put up with the short comings, or reach into savings fr other options as you did. The whole public charging fiasco will eventually place two low mileage Leafs on the road for early adopters with lower stated budgets.

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